The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1887-06-23
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Necessity of Faith and Prayer
Foroibly Illustrated.
The story Of stephen, the sIxtlyr\ and the
Pictures OF Sublime Faith ana
Trustful Prayes Presented
in ffh Death.

Aeao'dge bOOk mat OF the "NeceSSltJ
Of Faith and Prayer" illustrating 4
by the story OF the martyr stephen. His
text was:
Behold, see the heavens open, and the Sos
Of Man standing on the right hand OF God.
Then they cried out with . load voice, and
stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one
accord.
And cast him out OF the city and stoned him
and the witnesses laid down their clothes az Z
young mans feet, whose name was Saaa
And they stoned Stephen, callias upon God
and saying, Lord Jesus receive nv spirit
And he kneeled down and cried with loud
voice, Lord, lay not this sin 10 their charge
And when he had said this, he fell asleep
lActs, vii, $780,
Stephen had been preaching Q rousinR
sermon, and the people could not stand IL,
They resolved to do as men sometimes
would like to do to this day, il they dared,
with some plain preacher Of righteous
ness-kill him. The only way to silence
this man was to knock the breath out OF
him. So they rushed stephen out OF the
gates of the city, and with curse,
and whoop, and below they brought
him TO the cliff, as was the
custom when they wanted to take away
life by stoning, Having brought him to
the edge Of the clitf they pushed him of.
After be had fallen they came and looked
down, and seeing that he was not dead
they began to drop stones upon him, stone
after stone, stone after stone. Amid this
horriblerain OF missiles stephen clam
bers up on his knees and folds his hands,
while tho blood drips from his temples to
his cheeks, from his cheeks to his gar
merits, from his garments to the ground;
End then, looking up, he makes two pray
hiT1oca oil nd ON fn n
derers:
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit
That was for himself
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.
That was for his assailants. Then, fro m
pain and loss of blood, he swooned aw ay
and fell asleep.
want TO show you TO dav five pictures !;
stephen gazing into Heaven; Steph en-
looking at Christ; stephen stoned !;
stephen in his dying prayer; Stephe n
asleep.
First, look at Stephen gazing into
Heaven. Before you take q lea-, Sou
want to know where you are going to
land. Before you climb d ladder, you
want to know to what rolnt the ladder
reaches. And 1T was right that Stephen,
WITHIN rev moJLents Of Heaven, should
De gazing lnS it. We would all do well
10 De IoupL in the same posture. A man
OF larSe wealth may have statuary In the
hah and paintings in the sitting>room, and
works of art in all parts of the house. but
he has chief pictures in the art gallery,
and there, hour after hour, YOU walk with
catalogue and glass and ever increasing
admiration. Well, Heaven Is tho gallery
where God has gathered the chief treas
ures of his realm, The whole universe is
his palace, In this lower room where
we we stop there are many adorn-
ments-tessellated fiooC Of amethyst and
blossom, and on the winding cloud-stairs
are stretched out canvas on which COM
mlngle azure, and purple, and saff ron,
ana gold. But eaven is the gallery in
which TIE chief Plories are gathered.
mere are the brightest robes. There are
the richest crowns There are the high
est exhilarations. John says of it.:
The kings of the earth shall bring their honor
and glory into it.
And l see the procession forming, and
IN the line come all empires, and the stars
spring up into an arch for the hosts to
Darch under. They keep step to the
sound Of earthquake and the pitch of
avalanche from the mountains, and the
world, and all Heaven turns out with
harps and trumpets and myriad voiced
reclamation of angelic dominion to well
come them in, and so the kings of the
earth bring their honor and glory into it.
8 Do you wonder that good people often
stand like Stephen, looking into Heaveni
We have great many friends there.
There is not man in this house to-day so
isolated in life but there is some one in
heaven with whom he once shook hands.
As man gets older, the number of his
celestial acquaintance very rapidly
multiplies. We have not had one glimpse
OF them since the night we kissed them
goodbye and they went away, but still
we stand gazing into Heaven. AS when
some OF our friends go across the sea, we
stand on the deck, or on the steam-tug,
and watch them, and after awhile the
hull Of the vessel disappears, and then
there is only patch of sail ON the sky,
and soon that is gone, and they are all out
of sight, and yet we stand looking in the
same direction; so when our friends go
away from US Into the future world
we keep looking down through
the narrows, and gazing and gazing as
though we expected they would come
out and stand on some evening cloud, and
give US one glimpse of their blissful and
transfgured faces.
While you long to join their companion
ship and the years and the days go with
such tedlum that they break your heart,
and the viper OF pain and sorrow and
bereavement keeps gnawing at your
vltals, you still stand, like Stephen, gaz
ing into Heaven. You wonder if they
have changed since you saw them last.
You wonder if they would recognize your
face now, so changed has it been with
trouble. You wonder if, amid the
myriad delights they have, they care as
much for you as they used to when they
gave you helping hand, and put their
shoulder under your burdens. You won
der if they look any older; and some
times, in the evening-tide, when the
house is all quiet, you wonder If you
should call them by their first name if
they would not answer; and perha ps
some time you do make the experim en- t,
and when no one but God and yourself
are there you distinctly call there names,
and listen, and wait, and sit, gazing into
Heaven.
Pass on now, and see Stephen looking
upon Christ. My text days he saw the
Son of Man at the right hand Of God.
Just how Christ looked in this world, just
how he looks in Heaven, we can not say.
A writer in the time of Christ says, de-
scribing the Saviour's personal appear
ance, that he had blue eyes and light COM
plexion, and very graceful structure:
but suppose it was all guess work. The
painters of the different ages have tried
to imagine the features of Christ, and
put them on canvas; but we will have 10
wait until with our own eyes we see him